You are the devil and the devil is bad

Ahh the W's. Clearly one of the best Christian ska bands of the late 90's. With those lyrics they pointed out one of the most obvious things ever, and yet I find myself a lot of times forgetting that I do have an enemy.

Not only is this guy/thing/whatever pronoun you want to use for him/her/it out there, it really doesn't like me because I like Jesus and he really really doesn't like Jesus. In 1 Peter it says that Satan "prowls around like roaring lion seeking someone to devour." He has apparently been up to this for a long time because in the first part of Job (arguably the oldest of the books of the Bible) God asks Satan what he's been up to and he says "...roaming through the Earth and going back and forth on it." Well, let's just say that he must have decided to take a few days in Vienna because this past week was uncanny in how some things went down.

The week before was Spiritual Emphasis Week at VCS and it was a tremendous success. We had 2 kids come to know the Lord and several others begin to deal with sin in their life through counseling with teachers. As Chaplain, I also spent time with teachers developing a plan for follow-up. We have designed a schedule for students to be able to meet together daily for prayer. We have also set up for teachers involved in discipleship and leading Bible studies to get together for prayer and accountablilty in teaching. And finally, we have layed the foundations for starting a youth church at the school for our kids who come from backgrounds that would prevent them from being able to attend a regular church.

You can imagine that as this past week started we were all pretty excited. And that's when Satan showed up...big time. I can't really go into much detail, but let me simply ask that you would be in prayer for visa and work permit issues pertaining to the teachers at the school. As big a deal as this is, one thing Satan probably isn't too happy about is the unity among the staff. We spent over an hour in prayer together about this situation and to a person I think we are all resting in God's provision for this situation. It's so cool to be facing a really big thing and yet to have a quiet confidence that God is in control and He will receive the most glory however something works out.